Choosing a Squarespace Website Colour Scheme
Choosing an effective website colour scheme for your Squarespace website is essential to driving engagement and presenting your product or services in the best light.
As a Squarespace website designer, I fully appreciate searching through a seemingly infinite array of colours can be overwhelming. Fortunately, you can use several reliable strategies and valuable online tools to simplify the otherwise laborious task.
Read on to explore a variety of tips for choosing the perfect colour scheme for your Squarespace website.
How to Choose a Squarespace Website's Colour Scheme?
1. Define your intended audience
2. Consider your brand's personality
3. Understand colour psychology
Define your intended audience.
Defining your audience is essential for creating an effective colour scheme for your Squarespace web design. Through audience definition, you can better understand the needs and interests of the target customer you are trying to reach and create a colour palette that resonates. To define your audience, start by identifying characteristics such as age, gender, geography, values, lifestyle and interests. For example, if you are targeting an older demographic, you may want to use muted colours like pastels or earthy tones, whereas if you are aiming at a younger audience, you may opt for brighter colours.
Check out the competition.
When deciding on a colour scheme for your website, make sure you take the time to research the colours used by your competitors. Observe which hues and combinations work well for them and try to identify any trends in the industry. With this knowledge, you can create a custom colour palette that stands out from the competition.
Consider your brand's personality.
Considering your brand's personality is critical when deciding on a website colour scheme. After all, brand identity is an integral part of any successful business. So, why not use colour to stand out and express your business's unique style or emotional message? Think about the brand's audience together with its mission and values - are you trying to be adventurous and daring (think bright primary colours) or more reassuring and subtle (maybe try calming pastel tones)?
Creating a colour scheme that aligns with your brand identity can create an attractive and engaging online presence, perfectly conveying your story to customers.
Understanding colour psychology.
When choosing colours for your website, it is essential to consider the effects of colour psychology. This is because different colours evoke certain emotions. For example:
Blue
Induces feelings of relaxation and trust. It is popularly used in branding to convey messages of dependability, loyalty, and sincerity.
Red
If often associated with excitement and energy. It's often used in branding to convey a sense of boldness, modernity, and urgency.
Yellow
Evokes feelings of happiness, joy, and optimism due to its bright and cheerful tone. It is popularly used in marketing as it has been found to positively impact mood and energy levels.
Green
Green is often associated with health, prosperity and serenity. Conveying a sense of freshness, environmentalism and growth.
Violet
Violet is often associated with royalty, luxury, and imagination.
Black
Black can evoke a feeling of luxury, sophistication and timelessness that can be used to create an atmosphere of authority and strength.
Play around with complementary colours.
Colours that complement each other are called 'colour harmony'. Website designers use the rule of colour combinations on the colour wheel to give a website a particular look or feel. A colour wheel is an excellent tool for finding complementary colours that can be used harmoniously for a website.
Complementary
Make your website pop by choosing two colours on opposite sides of the colour wheel and incorporating them into your site. This is especially useful when drawing attention to the different elements of your site, such as buttons, menus, text and links.
Monochromatic
Three shades, tones and tints of one base colour provide a subtle and conservative combination. This versatile colour combination is easy to apply to design projects for a harmonious look. Add monochromatic colour gradients to the different elements on your site to create depth. This is especially effective when used within the backgrounds.
Analogous
An analogous colour scheme is when a website uses three colours that are side by side on the colour wheel. When using an analogous palette on your website, consider how different shades will work together to create a distinction between various elements while still having a unified look.
Triadic
If you want a vibrant yet versatile colour scheme that contrasts more than a complementary palette, opt for three hues evenly spaced around the colour wheel. This colour combination can be helpful when appealing to a younger audience or wanting your brand to appear bold and more daring.
Tetradic
Tetradic colour schemes are four hues that form a rectangle on the colour wheel. These palettes are eye-catching and most effective when one shade is placed at the forefront, with the others accenting it.
Use palette generators to stay on track.
Choosing a suitable colour scheme for your website can be one of the most stressful decisions you make as a web designer. With so many shades and hues, how do you know which is best? Luckily there are a wide array of palette generators out there that can be used as inspiration. Below we've listed some of our favourites.
Adobe - Latest colour trends of 2023
Colorhunt - Get inspired!
Coolers - Extract colour schemes from your photos
Canva - Colour wheel
uiGradient - Great online tool for playing around with colour gradients
Picking the best colour palette for your Squarespace website
Endless hours can be dedicated to discovering the perfect colour combinations for your Squarespace website. The main thing to remember when choosing a colour palette for your website is be bold and experiment, and remember, this is a casual process; there are no hard and fast rules.
The main takeaways from this blog post:
Define your intended audience
Check out the competition
Consider your brand's personality
Understand colour psychology
Play with complementary colours
Use a palette generator to stay on track
Considering the above and taking advantage of a wide array of free online tools, there is no reason why you can't create your own stunning website colour scheme that will set you apart from the competition and appeal to your audience.
Finally, always test out the selected hues on sample web pages, ensure they work together effectively, and create a distinctive visual impact.
